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The challenge is if you encrypt every email, you're basically using your own email server and service. The gov't isn't decrypting your HTTPS gmail traffic - it

The challenge is if you encrypt every email, you're basically using your own email server and service. The gov't isn't decrypting your HTTPS gmail traffic - it is going to Google, saying "hey, give me msy's emails from 2007 to 2010. k?thnx buhbye!" So you essentially have to go off the usual grid to run your own email service... then you have to get all your contacts onboard with using it. I have a client that uses zixmail - webmail that is https and just sends notifications to your plain-old-text email, then you login and read and reply to your email over https. Ironically, it is a gov't agency that makes us use it.. I wonder if they snoop on their own encrypted, vendor-provided secure email?

q3k 13y ago
Or you can use GPG or some other form of point-to-point encryption.
prg318 13y ago
Lavabit encrypts all of their stored email to the point that if you lose your password there is no way to recover your email. It might be worth checking out their service [1]. I've switched to lavabit from gmail and outside of a minor outage, I have had no complaints. [1] http://lavabit.com/ http://lavabit.com/
- fein 13y ago
  I loooove lavabit. Stumbled across it a year ago, and it's my primary account for all my freelance work. The only problem is that a lavabit email is generally viewed as an anonymous (burner) email, so half the services I want to register to just kick the email back as not being "legitimate" enough. For human to human emails it's great.
  - prg318 13y ago
    If you want to use something other than "@lavabit.com" for your e-mail address, you can. If you have a domain name, you can point your MX records for your domain at the lavabit servers to have your mail forwarded to your lavabit inbox. For example, you could get "John@Smith.com" and direct it to your lavabit inbox. After setting the MX records, you would just need to send an e-mail to lavabit support to have them set it up on their side.
darkarmani 13y ago
> So you essentially have to go off the usual grid to run your own email service... then you have to get all your contacts onboard with using it. Running a mail server is off-grid these days? Can't you just use pgp encryption and it doesn't matter where your email is stored.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > Running a mail server is off-grid these days? The vast majority of people are not able to run a mail server. Of the ones that do some should not be doing it because they're not clueful enough to keep it secure and out of blocklists. > Can't you just use pgp encryption and it doesn't matter where your email is stored. Most people get freaked out by context menus and right-clicking. You're smart; you're surrounded by smart people; you're surrounded by people who know computers. I think you might be unaware of just how bad most people are with computers.

q3k 13y ago

Or you can use GPG or some other form of point-to-point encryption.

prg318 13y ago

Lavabit encrypts all of their stored email to the point that if you lose your password there is no way to recover your email. It might be worth checking out their service [1]. I've switched to lavabit from gmail and outside of a minor outage, I have had no complaints. [1] http://lavabit.com/ http://lavabit.com/

fein 13y ago
I loooove lavabit. Stumbled across it a year ago, and it's my primary account for all my freelance work. The only problem is that a lavabit email is generally viewed as an anonymous (burner) email, so half the services I want to register to just kick the email back as not being "legitimate" enough. For human to human emails it's great.
- prg318 13y ago
  If you want to use something other than "@lavabit.com" for your e-mail address, you can. If you have a domain name, you can point your MX records for your domain at the lavabit servers to have your mail forwarded to your lavabit inbox. For example, you could get "John@Smith.com" and direct it to your lavabit inbox. After setting the MX records, you would just need to send an e-mail to lavabit support to have them set it up on their side.

darkarmani 13y ago

> So you essentially have to go off the usual grid to run your own email service... then you have to get all your contacts onboard with using it. Running a mail server is off-grid these days? Can't you just use pgp encryption and it doesn't matter where your email is stored.

DanBC 13y ago
> Running a mail server is off-grid these days? The vast majority of people are not able to run a mail server. Of the ones that do some should not be doing it because they're not clueful enough to keep it secure and out of blocklists. > Can't you just use pgp encryption and it doesn't matter where your email is stored. Most people get freaked out by context menus and right-clicking. You're smart; you're surrounded by smart people; you're surrounded by people who know computers. I think you might be unaware of just how bad most people are with computers.